Evasive Action Can Trump Really Have It Both Ways On Abortion?

A few months ago, the former president Donald Trump accused the Republican party of speaking "very inarticulately" on abortion.

- Carter Sherman

And yet, for the GOP presidential frontrunner, inarticulateness seems to be a feature, not a bug, of his own approach to abortion.

Trump thinks he can run in 2024 as a "moderate" on abortion, Rolling Stone reported last week - even though he's currently running ads in Iowa, a crucial state in the Republican primary, proclaiming himself "the most pro-life president ever". It's a title to which Trump has a legitimate claim: his three nominees to the Supreme Court not only handed the nation's highest court a definitive conservative majority, but all three voted to overturn Roe v Wade in summer last year.

While Republicans have flailed over how to message on abortion, Trump has - in typical Trump fashion - flip-flopped on it with apparent ease. He has refused to say whether he supports a federal ban and called the decision by Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, to sign a six-week abortion ban a "terrible thing".

But all the while, Trump continues to take credit for overturning Roe.